A battle is brewing in New York City over smartphone applications that allow users to hail a taxicab. A lawsuit was recently filed by Livery cab drivers to block Yellow Cabs from accepting passengers who use a smartphone hailing application.

The reason the lawsuit has sprung up stems from nuances in the New York taxicab rules. In New York City, Yellow Cabs can pick up passengers who hail them on the street, but can't be dispatched by phone. On the other hand, Livery cabs are in a different category and are only allowed to pick up passengers who call ahead to arrange a pickup. Apparently, Livery cab drivers are upset at the idea that Yellow Cabs being hailed by smartphone are actually being dispatched by phone.

Livery cab drivers believe that if the approximately 13,237 Yellow Cabs with the New York City are allowed to prearrange pickups using smartphone apps such as HailO and Flywheel, it would violate Taxi and Limousine Commission regulations.

HailO for iOS

New York City officials said they are reviewing the apps and hope to have the new system up and running soon.

Yellow Cabs are a $2.5 billion industry and transport over 500,000 passengers each day. However, typical Yellow Cabs within New York spend 40% of their time empty and looking for passengers. Yellow Cab drivers, however, believer that hailing apps will allow them to spend less time empty and more time making money.

He's not asking the how, he's asking the why. Why aren't all 3 types of cab allowed to make all types of calls, basically requiring just 1 cab? If the difference is money they could even raise the cheapest ones to the level of the most expensive ride, as there's no cabs here with a standard fare. They all operate around the same price, market conform, only the starting fares might be slightly different from company to company.

How it is here in europe is simple. There are only a few locations in which alot of people hail cabs. Railway stations, strips with nightclubs, usually near busstops as well. If anybody needs a cab they just walk a short distance to those areas and there's a cab waiting 9/10 times, or one will soon arrive.

If anybody calls for a cab it will be relayed to the closest cab, wether that's one standing still at a hailing spot or one returning from a delivery to the hailing spot. It can even be relayed to cab drivers at the cab companies head quarters, if it happens to be closest. With a large pool of drivers, there's always somebody returning and thus free, otherwise the customer will just call another cab company.

So why would you need 2-3 seperate types of cabs, some of which will drive by hailing customers?